66 – Boston
Shapiro struggled to stop arguing with his wife in his mind as he navigated his car through the streets of Boston’s chic Back Bay neighborhood, looking for house numbers on the apartment buildings as he struggled not to run into the rears of double-parked cars. After circling the same block three times, he identified Judy Katz’s building and spotted her sitting on the stone steps leading to the front door. He honked his horn twice and she stood up, waving.
She did not look like the crime busting prosecutor he’d met with previously. Dressed in decidedly unlawyerly jeans and a floppy bright yellow cotton tank top, Katz could have passed for one of the college students who crammed into luxury apartments in her neighborhood. Her long black hair was tied in a pony tail that sprouted through the hole in the back of her baseball cap, a cap that bore a Star of David on the front, above the words Camp Tikvah.
She tossed her L.L. Bean duffel bag into the back and sat in the passenger seat.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am about this,” she said.
“Well, thanks for coming down a day early,” Shapiro said. “I got drafted to stand by in case there are any last minute legal hassles.”
Shapiro smiled at her. This was something entirely new for him. Despite several temptations, he had never been unfaithful to his wife, a few phone sex sessions and porn films while he was on out-of-town trips, maybe, but that did not count as infidelity in his book. Shapiro didn’t know where this escapade with Katz was going to lead, but he was surprised at how easy it was for him to be attracted to this young woman and at how she, for some reason he could not comprehend, seemed to be attracted to him.
The expectation that he would return to an empty house, and that this separation was for real, did little to hold him back. This could be the world’s fastest rebound romance, he thought, under an hour. He didn’t realize that more often than not, such rebounds involved overlaps rather than a gap.
“You look ready for a political demonstration,” Shapiro said to Katz, smiling. “Did you bring your gas mask?”
A troubled expression clouded her face.
“Was I supposed to?” she asked. “Shit, we had a shelf of them in the tactical room at work, you know. I could have grabbed one.”
Shapiro laughed. “No, no, I was kidding. That was an attempt at a joke,” he said. “I had one in college, government surplus. It never worked. I became a connoisseur of crowd control gas back then. There was tear gas. You dripped water or Visine in your eyes for that. Pepper gas. Hated that stuff. You never ever rubbed your eyes when they used that stuff. It caused more irritation. And of course there was that favorite when the pigs wanted to get nasty with you, CN gas. That made you puke your guts out. Didn’t feel much like taking over the dean’s office with a face full of CN, I’ll tell you.”
Shapiro saw the shocked look on the young woman’s face.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I’ve been accused more than once of never outgrowing the Sixties. And also of telling far too many stories.”
“You’re like a living history lesson,” Katz said, with a sly grin. “I dressed as a hippie for Halloween once when I was a kid.”
“Ouch,” Shapiro said, placing his hand over his heart. “That one hurt.”
They both laughed. Levi turned the car onto the Massachusetts Turnpike. “I figure we can get there in about eight hours,” he said. “I have an iron bladder so let me know when you want to stop for a break.”
They rode in silence for several minutes. Shapiro glanced at the woman sitting to his right. He smiled at the clichéd thought that she could be his daughter. But she sure isn’t, he added to himself, noticing a pale, untanned spot high on her left arm. She noticed his glance at her arm.
“Laser surgery,” she said, tapping the spot with her right hand. “A tattoo. A dare.”
Katz grinned, staring straight ahead through the windshield.
Much as he wondered about that tattoo, and continued to do so for the remainder of the drive, Shapiro lacked the nerve to ask what image could have been so embarrassing to a thirty-one year old woman that she’d had it surgically removed.
He tried another topic.
“So what happened at work? Have you quit, or did Arnie Anderson fire you first?”
“Actually, I haven’t officially quit, or been fired yet,” she said. “I’ve been trying to set up a meeting with Arnie for days but he keeps putting me off. We’re scheduled to meet Monday morning. That’s when I’ll hand in my badge.”
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation,” Shapiro said. “My feeling is that he’ll be relieved to have you go. Arnie’s not a bad guy, but these cases have put him in a tough situation.”
“Tough situation for lots of people,” Katz said. “The story is that the Queen quit over these cases.”
“Good for her,” Shapiro said. “That’s half the problem now, plenty of people know right from wrong, but when their ass, or their job, is on the line, they follow orders now and hope to justify them later.
“Be sure and take good notes at that meeting with Arnie. I’ll be curious.”
They sat in silence for several more minutes as the car roared down the highway. Shapiro, again, was the first to break the silence.
“Damn,” he said. “I forgot a phone call I was going to make before I left. Hmm, you’re going to have to pretend that you’re not here. This is going to be a confidential discussion. No sneezing or coughing, OK?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” she said.
Shapiro’s cell phone was in the storage compartment in the arm rest between the two front seats. The phone communicated with the car’s voice-activated navigation system over a wireless Bluetooth link. When Shapiro pressed the telephone icon on the steering wheel, the navigation screen switched to a telephone dial. He hit the 411 numbers on the screen and was connected to directory assistance, which connected him, at his request, to the office of the Suffolk County District Attorney.
Shapiro spoke into a microphone built into the rearview mirror. The voice on the other end came from the car’s front speakers.
The call was answered by District Attorney Patrick McDonough’s secretary. She recognized Shapiro’s name and put him through to the chief prosecutor for Boston.
“Ben, thought you’d be down in D.C. waving a sign or something,” the District Attorney said, laughing. “Aren’t you the head Jewish lawyer or something these days?”
“Actually, Pat, I’m in the car on the Mass Pike heading for Washington right now,” Shapiro said. “I wanted to check in with you about that kid I’m representing. Mandelbaum. You said you’d give the idea of turning him over to the feds some thought.”
“Oh, I thought about it all right, Ben,” McDonough said. “For about five seconds. That kid’s a murderer, no two ways about it. I saw how the feds rounded all those people up and then sent them home with a stern lecture.
“No, Ben, it’s not going to work that way on this one. People are dead, ten people. It’s too bad he’s the only one who’s gonna pay the price for this, but he’s all I’ve got. I think I’ll hang on to him.”
“I thought you might say that,” Shapiro said. “I’ve got another proposition for you, Pat. Do you want to hear it?”
“I didn’t think you were calling to ask me to look up the traffic conditions on the Mass Pike for you,” McDonough said. “OK, Ben, shoot.”
“What if I could identify the Israeli soldiers on those freighters who sank the Coast Guard boats, the ones who fired the grenades and planned the whole thing?” Shapiro asked in a flat voice. “Not to say that I can, or that my guy can, but what if I could, that would be worth something, right?”
“That would be worth something.” McDonough said noncommittally. “What’s the deal you have in mind, Ben?”
“Simple,” Shapiro said. “Ten or so Israeli soldiers get ID’d, you bring whatever charges you want against them, you fight the feds for custody of them, and my guy gets turned over to the feds to be placed in that camp, all state charges against him nolle prossed.”
“You want me to dismiss against him?” McDonough replied. “I can’t go that far.”
Shapiro attempted to sound confident. “Yes you can. Call it federal preemption or something,” Shapiro said. “You can do it on your own, don’t even need a judge’s approval.”
“You know, Pat, we go to trial and I might walk this guy. He had nothing to do with anything. All he did was jump in the water and not swim fast enough to get away. A jury could walk him.”
“Dream on, counselor,” the district attorney said. “Not with the mood going around today. Not a good time to be a Jew on trial for murder. You know that. Let me give your proposal some thought. Just so I’m clear, you say you can identify Israeli soldiers, active military personnel, right, who fired rocket propelled grenades and sank the Coast Guard ships?”
“This is just a theoretical discussion for the moment, Pat,” Shapiro said. “Let’s say that in theory that’s true. You get back to me and tell me what you would do in return for that information. OK?”
“Hold on, Ben. I trust you. I don’t trust the time of day from your client,” McDonough said. “Do you personally have this information?”
“Pat, if I did, it would be privileged. Does it make a difference if it comes from me or him?”
“It could make all the difference in the world, Ben.”
“If it makes a difference in regard to getting my guy out of Charles Street,” Shapiro said, “you can theoretically assume that I share my client’s knowledge.”
“Good. I’ve got to check with the feds first. You’ll be hearing from me, Ben,” McDonough said. “Let’s say that I’m intrigued by your proposal.”
The call was terminated from the other end.
“Can your guy really do that?” Katz asked. “I suppose what I mean is would your client really do that, turn in Israeli soldiers like that?”
“My guy,” Shapiro said, “is presently the best girlfriend of at least six very large, very horny men who seem to be very good friends with the corrections officers who are supposed to be looking out for my guy’s safety. He’ll do anything to, quite literally, save his ass.”
They drove on in silence, only to be interrupted by the cell phone ringing. The caller ID was shown on the car’s navigation screen in the middle of the dashboard. It was not the district attorney, as Shapiro hoped. Instead, the caller identification was his home telephone number.
Shapiro looked at the young woman sitting next to him. “My wife,” he said. “We’re on the outs. It’s a long story but I don’t think this is a conversation you would want to experience.
“I’ll let it ring,” he said. “I can always talk to her later.”
The ringing stopped. They drove on toward the nation’s capital.